Snowden’s Advisers Confess: The Putin TV Appearance Was An Epic Blunder

With heroes like these, who needs heroes? As we discussed last week, Edward Snowden derped his way into handing Vladimir Putin a major propaganda victory live on the state-run RT network. So phenomenal a blunder it was for Team Snowden, he almost immediately fired off a mea culpa, published in The Guardian.

The article, presumably written by Snowden but likely crafted in conjunction with his team of advisers (explanation to follow), desperately attempted to ameliorate the negative impact of Snowden’s deep-tissue massage for Putin into a shot across Putin’s bow — an initial step into adversarial journalism against the Russian intelligence community. Snowden wrote that he had attempted to get Putin on-the-record (on a state-run TV network, laughably) denying what the FSB, Russia’s NSA counterpart, was really up to — this way, when the facts come out, Team Snowden could collectively scold the Russian president for lying, just like what happened to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. But of course we all generally know what Russia is doing, that its surveillance operations are considerably more vast and pernicious than NSA’s.

The reality is that a would-be Russian variant of Greenwald who attempts to expose the FSB in the same way Snowden and Greenwald did with NSA won’t get anywhere. Indeed, if by some miracle such a process occurred, it would only end up making the United States appear saintly, contra-Snowden — what with our press freedoms and comparatively transparent government, not to mention the narrower scope of our surveillance activities when contrasted against what Russia is up to.

Since the crisis in Ukraine, the Kremlin has been gagging Russian journalists and their publications. And, of course, any outside journalists who publish information about the FSB will be met with yawns rather that awards and accolades. Why? Because the world already knows about all of that. Then again, recycling old news didn’t stop Greenwald and the others from spicing up previously-known information, adding PowerPoint slides, click-bait headlines and lots of melodrama to grab attention and incite public outrage.

So realistically, there was no intention to launch SnowdenOp: The Sequel — that is until Snowden realized he and his team really screwed the pooch on this one.

To wit, The Daily Beast published an explosive article on Sunday, titled “Snowden’s Camp: Staged Putin Q&A Was a Screw-Up,” detailing how Snowden’s advisers acknowledge that the RT appearance was badly botched.

Some highlights:

“It certainly didn’t go as he would’ve hoped,” one of these sources said. “I don’t think there’s any shame in saying that he made an error in judgment.”

Ya’ think?

According to [ACLU lawyer Ben] Wizner and others, Snowden hadn’t realized how much last week’s Q&A—with Putin blithely assuring Snowden that Moscow had no such eavesdropping programs—would appear to be a Kremlin propaganda victory to Western eyes.

This raises the salient question: what other aspects of the Kremlin, its politics and propaganda has Team Snowden underestimated and misinterpreted? I mean, this was a pretty obvious one to even casual observers with limited Russian expertise. Consequently, what else have they given up?… READ MORE

By: Bob Cesca

Bob Cesca is the managing editor at The Daily Banter (www.thedailybanter.com) and a Huffington Post contributor since 2005. He's worked in journalism since 1988 as a print writer/editor, a radio news anchor, a digital media columnist/editor, a book author and blogger. He's the co-host of the Bubble Genius Bob & Chez Show podcast and a Thursday regular on the syndicated Stephanie Miller Show. He's appeared on numerous other radio shows including the John Phillips Show and Geraldo Rivera Show in Los Angeles. Bob has been a commentator/analyst on the BBC (TV and radio), MSNBC, Current TV, CNN and Sky News. Following him on Twitter: @bobcesca_go